Nature abhors a vacuum. And so it is that, tired of seeing essential questions of education completely absent from the political debate, four civic organizations concerned about the fate of schools have just launched a collective reflection on the training of students, Parlons éducation. Vast and ambitious program, but refreshing initiative, which will hopefully encourage the government to follow suit. Because after all, isn’t education the “priority of priorities”?
The idea of a Parent 2.0 commission, as the first initiator of this crazy idea, our columnist Normand Baillargeon, called it, has been moving for several years in the committed minds of a few vital forces gravitating around the education network. The invitation is both simple and incredibly complex: to rethink the school in the light of contemporary realities and challenges, to take stock of our failures and our great successes, to imagine the education of the future. Since Quebec does not start this necessary reflection, passionate citizens have decided to occupy the space. They propose to conduct social dialogue this spring, with 18 citizen forums to be held in 17 cities in Quebec. The participation program provides for this discussion open to all around five major themes, ranging from the school’s mission to the democratization of the school system.
Small jewels of reform were born from these great moments of collective reflection centered around the school. Obviously, the founding event remains the Parent commission, which, at the end of the 1950s, proposed a real revolution centered on the democratization and accessibility of school. The Liberal government of Jean Lesage faced an education system dominated by religion, which was neither democratic, nor inclusive, nor free from sexism. From 1961 to 1966, in the bubbling context of the Quiet Revolution, this commission gave rise to the birth of our education network as we know it with its ministry, its high schools, its CEGEPs and universities in Quebec.
In the mid-1990s, another burst of reform saw the light of day in the Estates General on Education. This shift, which was to be based on general demand on fundamental knowledge, fell apart in a spectacular and lamentable way in a guerrilla war opposing knowledge to “transversal skills”, a pedagogical concept which only succeeds in opposing to each other the researchers and demobilized school staff. This reform will not go down in history as a positive pivotal moment in the construction of schools in Quebec.
Since then, more than 25 years have passed. Policies and action plans have emanated from the Ministry of Education in favor of the governments that have taken over Quebec, and the ministers who have been responsible for improving the lot of schools – from 2002 , where François Legault occupied the head of this ministry, until today, where his colleague Bernard Drainville is there, 13 ministers have succeeded one another. Many of these actions have focused on improving success, both individually—student results—and institutional—school performance. Against the background of dropping out of school, accountability has become part of the task, which means that today we denounce the time and energy spent working on forms rather than instructing children. In this field, the needs are immense: do we need to remember that almost a third of the primary school population is associated with special needs caused by difficulties or a handicap? The “ordinary” class is a concept that no longer exists, burdened even more by competition from private schools and special projects aspiring the best students within public schools.
The Let’s Talk Education initiative is daring, because its discussion plan is very broad, and it will take fine and organized facilitation to draw guidelines from this consultation. But above all, it reminds us how necessary this debate on the future of school is. Recent governments have run the school in firefighting mode, it has to be admitted, as the emergencies have piled up. Schools in ruins, a three-speed school, poor air quality in the classrooms, multiplication of students in difficulty and above all, above all, a shortage of teaching staff and difficulties in retaining those who are in post. To this gloomy picture, let’s add the devastating analysis just made by the Auditor General of Quebec, who blamed Quebec for not having in hand the picture of the school delays caused by the pandemic, a sign that the Ministry of Education seems to be sailing view.
If school is the priority of priorities, then let us demonstrate it concretely. Parlons éducation invites Québec to listen to the voices of citizens and put education back at the center of political debate.